Built Online with Colin Raja | Ep.105

Summary

Built Online with Colin Raja | Ep.105 – Detailed Summary

Release Date: June 16, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 105 of Built Online, host Cody McGuffey welcomes Colin Raja, the inaugural Amazon product launch expert on the show. The episode delves deep into effective Amazon product launch strategies, leveraging Colin's extensive experience in launching and scaling multiple Amazon brands.

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Guest Background and Expertise

Colin Raja shares his journey into the Amazon marketplace, starting in 2014-2015 inspired by the book Rich Dad Poor Dad. Determined to transform his life, Colin dedicated extensive hours after his 9-to-5 job to build successful brands from scratch. Over the past three years, he has launched approximately 150 products across 15 to 20 brands, emphasizing a data-driven approach over traditional "hacks and tricks."

“Nobody wants to go deeper. They don't want to . . .” [00:41]

Colin emphasizes his commitment to sharing knowledge and helping others avoid the pitfalls he encountered in his early days.

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Understanding Amazon Product Launches

Cody initiates a discussion by reflecting on his own challenges with Amazon FBA product launches, highlighting the steep learning curve and the high costs associated with unsuccessful launches. He expresses a keen interest in mastering intentional product launch strategies to scale his Amazon business effectively.

Key Components of a Successful Launch:

1. Front End Optimization:

   • Product Differentiation: Colin underscores the importance of ensuring your product stands out among competitors. “If your product was like one among the 30 people and you don't even notice that that's your product, that's the biggest red flag on your product, first of all.” [02:05]
   • Listing Optimization: Focus on creating compelling images and descriptions that resonate with your target audience. Utilizing platforms like 99design for creative assets is recommended.

2. Backend Optimization:

   • Keyword Strategy: Understanding and implementing the right keywords is crucial. Colin discusses the shift from traditional keyword indexing to a more sophisticated Dynamic Re-ranking Model that prioritizes purchase intent keywords.
   • Data-Driven Decisions: Leveraging tools like Product Opinion, Helium 10, and Data Dive to analyze competitor performance and keyword effectiveness.

3. Middleware Management:

   • Amazon Attributes and Browse Nodes: Properly mapping product attributes and browse nodes ensures better visibility and alignment with Amazon's search algorithms.
   • Experience Building: Creating a seamless user experience to reduce bounce rates and improve conversion rates. “If your Amazon backend data was not set up straight, it doesn't matter how big, how beautiful product, what is that you have, you're not going to grow faster.” [10:14]

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Advanced Launch Strategies

Phased Keyword Targeting: Colin introduces a phased approach to keyword targeting, dividing keywords into groups and pushing traffic strategically to rank specific keywords over time.

“We divided into what are the keywords what we need to be focused on right now to get to a minimum sales on the first two weeks of period of time.” [19:20]

• Phase 1: Initial keyword ranking through targeted PPC campaigns.
• Phase 2: Expanding keyword reach based on performance data.
• Phase 3: Sustaining and maintaining keyword rankings to ensure long-term sales growth.

Shift from Traditional Giveaways: While giveaways were once a staple for new launches, Colin explains their diminished effectiveness post-2016 due to Amazon's evolving algorithms. Instead, he advocates for a combination of external traffic, PPC advertising, and data-driven relevance to drive sales.

“We do, we did like a couple of external traffic and we do like a couple of their own audience giveaways process.” [24:19]

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Data-Driven Decision Making

Colin emphasizes the importance of data over intuition in making strategic decisions. By understanding metrics such as search query performance, PPC data, and keyword profitability, brands can make informed decisions that drive sales without relying solely on gut feelings.

“I don't want to spend that much money as well. We don't do that one.” [26:28]

This meticulous approach allows for precise allocation of resources, ensuring that each product launch is optimized for maximum return on investment.

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Audience Targeting and Listing Experience

Understanding the target audience is pivotal. Colin identifies seven types of buyers, including value buyers, seasonal buyers, gift buyers, and professional buyers. Tailoring the listing to speak directly to these segments enhances relevance and conversion rates.

“You focus on in such a way that you're speaking to that audience in such a way that oh this is what I'm looking for.” [21:15]

Creating an engaging and relevant listing reduces bounce rates and improves the overall shopping experience, thus positively impacting Amazon's ranking algorithms.

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Rapid Fire Insights

Towards the end of the episode, Cody and Colin engage in a rapid-fire segment, revealing personal insights and additional advice.

• Favorite Business Books:

  • “Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself” – Emphasizes emotional control and decision-making.
  • “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight – A memoir highlighting entrepreneurial struggles and triumphs.
  • “Super Becoming a Supernatural” by Joe Dispenza – Focuses on personal transformation.

• Lessons Learned:

  • Embrace setbacks as opportunities for growth. “When your setback comes, be ready and be joyful because most of the time we always look for bad things not to happen.” [29:05]

• Worst Business Advice Received:

  • Relying solely on gut feelings instead of data-driven decisions. Colin highlights the challenges of distinguishing between intuition and informed decision-making, ultimately advocating for a data-centric approach.

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Conclusion and Connect with Colin Raja

Cody wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to connect with Colin for further insights and support in their Amazon ventures. Colin shares his social media handles and invites listeners to engage with his content for the latest updates and case studies.

“You can follow me in my YouTube channel Colin Raja. You can connect me with me in the Facebook Colin Raja.” [33:49]

Key Takeaways:

• Successful Amazon product launches require a holistic, data-driven approach encompassing front-end optimization, backend keyword strategies, and middleware management.
• Traditional methods like giveaways are less effective; instead, focus on targeted PPC campaigns and external traffic.
• Understanding and targeting specific buyer personas enhances listing relevance and conversion rates.
• Embracing setbacks as growth opportunities fosters resilience and long-term success.

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For more detailed strategies and insights from Colin Raja, follow his YouTube Channel and Facebook Page. Additionally, links to the tools and resources mentioned in this episode can be found in the show notes below.

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Sponsored by EverBee: E-commerce software trusted by over 1,000,000 business owners to start, grow, and scale their companies.

Transcript

[Colin Raja]

If your Amazon backend data was not set up straight, it doesn't matter how big, how beautiful product, what is that you have, you're not going to grow faster. So that's where when it comes to a launch, these three components are most important thing.

[Cody McGuffey]

Welcome to Built online. I'm Cody McGuffey and this podcast is all about one thing. Building the business of your dreams. Selling art, teaching classes, starting a blog, launching a brand. Whatever your passion is, we show you how to to turn it into real income. I created Ever Be to help anyone with a dream start and scale business. Ever Be, Ever be Ever be Ever.

[Colin Raja]

Be, Ever be, Ever be.

[Cody McGuffey]

We now serve over 800,000 creators all across the globe. On this show, we bring on real entrepreneurs who've done it. They share their secrets, they share their failures. The exact steps that you can take to get started. What if you can get one golden nugget out of today's episode? And it's the breakthrough that takes you from just dreaming to actually living a life on your terms. At Everbee, we believe that every human is a creator and every creator should own a business. Colin, what's going on, man? How are you?

[Colin Raja]

I'm good, man. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. How are. Great.

[Cody McGuffey]

Awesome, man. I'm great, man. Super happy to have you too. You be the first product launch expert that we would have on the podcast actually for Amazon.

[Colin Raja]

Really? That's amazing. Oh, well, I'm okay. All right. We got a lot to talk about it.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, we do. We've talked about Amazon SEO. We've talked about like Amazon getting live on Amazon, why you should go from your site, why you should consider Amazon as a, as a strategy, as a channel. But we haven't specifically talked about Amazon product launch. Not specifically about that. And I think it's a.

[Colin Raja]

It's a deep subject actually. It's a. Not a lot of people encounter how in deep it is. They. Most of the places they talk on a very surface level but because people get confused and also they don't want to go deeper. Nobody wants to. Yeah, happy to dive in, man. Like.

[Cody McGuffey]

Let'S go to maybe. Maybe I'll use this as an example. Maybe today we can talk about Cody, me, myself, like maybe 10 years ago when I had a product and I had a product in Amazon, I sold on Amazon FBA and I did. It seems like everything wrong when it comes to like my first product launch. I thought I knew what I was doing, of course, but you don't. You quickly realize you just don't know and the second one went a little bit better. Third one went a little bit better. Eventually tech kind of took my. Took my passions and I kind of ran with technology and software and stuff. But I still own that or I used to own that that Amazon FBA brand for. Until last year I think. So we owned it for a while and it was a great. It was a great brand. It wasn't a big brand but it was. It was awesome. But I never launched more products after that and mostly because I did. I knew that it was going to be hard to launch it and I didn't know how to do it properly. And so personally I would love to learn about the product launch strategies 100.

[Colin Raja]

I love that one actually for sure. I'm. I'm glad to in light open up a lot of doors actually for you. Once you. Once you know that this is like you you're a software guy, you're a SaaS based guy. Once you know that it's just a data to understand how. How launch works. It's not about like hacks and tricks. Then you go. You're gonna go crazy and then you want to launch more products.

[Cody McGuffey]

I love that. Cool. Well let's. Let's jump in man. What, what? Tell us a little bit about your background. Maybe like for 30 seconds about.

[Colin Raja]

All right. So basically started Amazon in 2014 and 2015 after reading the rich dad poor dad book and then I find like whatever I have done is so stupid I have to change my life. And I read the book the rich dad was introducing math the amazing seller mission and I was like I'm not going to pay for that but I can do this one spend 19 hours a day after my work actually after nine to five job and started it built the two seven figure brands from the scratch last three years ago in the path what is the purpose and searching for all the things and help one of my friend to bring back his struggle period. At that point of time I found I started sharing everything whatever what I have done for him that gives the purpose of like so much joy of like sharing. And then I'm being vocal about. I've been talking about this for everywhere how to do launches and how to do whatever. I know I've been started sharing everywhere. Last year alone we did like close to 150 product launch completely straight pretty successful. Finding a way to make the data speaks for your launch. Not just a hacks and tricks of what I mentioned before.

[Cody McGuffey]

That's a quick thank you for that. No 150 product launches for goodness sakes. That's, that's a lot. And those are all for other brands like your clients, I guess you could.

[Colin Raja]

Say that is correct.

[Cody McGuffey]

Perfect. How many, how many brands like was that like total, you think? How many different companies?

[Colin Raja]

Like maybe like 15 to 20 brands actually.

[Cody McGuffey]

So 10. So 10. 10. 5 to 10 products each brand on average brand actually.

[Colin Raja]

Average, yeah.

[Cody McGuffey]

Which is in Amazon world. For anyone that doesn't sell on Amazon that's listening today, that's actually a lot. That's, that's a good amount of products because a lot of people sell on Etsy that are listening to this, Colin. And there's a lot of people that sell on Amazon of course too. But for the Etsy sellers that don't, don't know Amazon yet, product launches, they, you kind of want to do them right because that's, it's more expensive. It's usually about 3 to $5,000 per launch considering inventory and the launch strategies probably. And so you don't do as many product launches as you would on Etsy where you launch sometimes 10 products in a day, 100 products in a day. So because there's no, there's no cost hardly.

[Colin Raja]

There's no cost on it, but the Amazon is like a huge cost of launches. Usually launch cost typically between 15 to 30 thousand dollars.

[Cody McGuffey]

Oh, is that right?

[Colin Raja]

Yeah. But you will get that money back in like three months back actually. And after that you just have to keep monitoring, maintaining the product actually. That's what.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. So let's maybe take a step back for a second and focus on, let's say I sell on Amazon already, Amazon fba. I have two products already live on Amazon. They generate some revenue and it's a fitness brand. Yeah. And let's say we sell foam rollers, we sell, you know, basically anything that you see in a gym essentially. That's what we focus on and we focus on that. And I want to launch more products.

[Colin Raja]

Okay.

[Cody McGuffey]

But I don't know how I, I launched my other two, two, two products and they're successful moderately, but we never like really, they're not like big high volume products. But I, I really want to continue to expand my catalog and basically 10x my Amazon business over the next maybe two years.

[Colin Raja]

Yeah.

[Cody McGuffey]

I already, I already know how Amazon FBA works. I already know my for the most part like how SEO works and I understand Amazon ads and PPC and all this stuff at a general level, but I don't know how to launch a product with intention and to make sure that I win and I know there's a way. There's a. To make sure that I win, but I don't, I don't know that way. So can we, can we start there?

[Colin Raja]

Sure, yeah. The first step for a product launch is like finding the amazing problem. Amazing saw amazing product, actually, first of all. So what do you mean by amazing? Right? So the first step, first thing, if your product was like one among the 30 people and you don't even notice that that's your product, that's the biggest red flag on your product, first of all. So you fail by selecting that product actually, basically. So you better have some level of differentiation or some level of changes in your listing or images to making sure that your product launch will be successful. That's the 50% of launch will be done if you did that one. Right. Right. The second, second thing, basically, let's divide it into. Break it down into small pieces. So Amazon, it's a very close system. It's not like you're running a traffic from everywhere. It's getting a traffic from here and there and you're measuring the traffic. You're running ads here and there. Actually, not like that. It's a very close system. People come to Amazon to buy product. They look for product, they search product, they click product, they add to cart product. They wish list and they share and then buy and then they go actually. Right. That's the whole ecosystem of Amazon. We can divide this part into three things. One front end, other one is back end. The middleware is there actually completely. We need to identify why somebody is, is really buying your competitor, not yours. That's the first part, right? How you can do it. There are a couple of tools available, like a product opinion. Right. You take a look at, put that in your pooling process completely and find out why somebody's buying you my product and why somebody's buying your competitor product. And find out those information. Break it down into pieces. So match exactly what it is actually.

[Cody McGuffey]

Which tools, like, are the best ones out there. I know Jungle star was then helium 10.

[Colin Raja]

No, not. It's a product opinion. On Intell, there are two tools available. I use product opinion a lot. So you break it down the front end. So now you know exactly what it takes to identify why your competitors are really winning. Is it our prices? It's our reviews. Is it like because of the images? What's the reason in the back? Okay, I'll send you the link. Actually, I have like, I can get you like 100 credits actually, whoever signed up. And then I can get you that one as well. I know the founder very well.

[Cody McGuffey]

Is it, is it app appenino or is it. I'm just looking on Google here.

[Colin Raja]

It's basically like a product opinion. Let me say product. Yeah, it's pinion a product. P I N I O N. Okay, cool.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, we'll, we'll link to everyone. If you're listening to this, we'll, we'll link to the show in the show notes. Okay, keep going.

[Colin Raja]

So first we'll find out that information. So the first one is gone actually the second one is like a backend which is backend is basically like all the keywords and every single aspect of it. The keyword. How many keywords are acquired? How many keywords like all the top 10 competitors acquired. And if somebody is like selling, selling like a thousand units actually how many keywords he acquired? If they're selling for 2,000 units, how many keywords. Keywords they acquired? If you're going for 5,000, how many keywords you acquired? So Amazon is all about acquiring how many keywords you acquire for your listing completely. So if you find out like a 10 people you can able to find out, okay, if you rank for these 20 keywords you can able to make like a thousand sales, right? So now we have the front end data, we have the back end data completely. And with the middleware is basically your Amazon nitty gritty, which is like browse node, product type and all the information actually which is like basically attributes, refinements and every single thing in the middleware completely. To making sure that. I'll put this analogy like this, right? Let's say you have a Ferrari, right? It doesn't matter how fast you can, it's how fast the engine can drive. If the road is not straight, really great. If the roads has like a bump and dumps and everywhere actually it doesn't matter how powerful engine you have, you're not going to drive fast. Amazon is like that. If your Amazon backend data was not set up straight, it doesn't matter how big, how beautiful product, what is that you have, you're not going to grow faster actually. So that's where. When it comes to, when it comes to a launch, these three components are most important thing. In the middleware component you can able to copy just like what is your competitor. Match everything, whatever is required completely very easy. But the front end and back end, it's required a little bit of work. Once you have these three components, you're ready for a launch at that point. Okay, so that's where you start with the launch process first.

[Cody McGuffey]

Okay. So you check these three things off. The front end, the middle wire and the back end. Now it's ready to go. Now first of all, is that something that you would help brands do or they expected to have this done before they even get to you?

[Colin Raja]

No, we help brands to do that one. So we take through the whole holistic approach. Approach. We don't like just like, oh, I'm going to rank your keyword. That's not what we do. We take like a holistic approach of like why this is, why this is happening, why your product are not selling really good. So one other brand we recently launched, which is like one of the product we recently launched which is like went from 50,000 to $465,000 a month actually in a three, four months jump. I'm talking about amazing. By strategically placing everything in place with like identifying if you don't know. See, here's what they say, right? If you don't know where you are and then you're not going to know where, even if you know that way you're going to travel, you're not going to able to get there because there is no way that you can. You can get there because you don't know where you are. You are in like a super desert and you are like, want to go for like a Las Vegas and then want to go for like a casino. And I'm like, how are you going to create a road map if you don't even know where you are? So the force them to know is like where we are and what is the problem and then, and then we fix the problem. So that's what they say, like the best way to solve the problem is like identify there is a problem, actually.

[Cody McGuffey]

Make it clear on actually what the problem is. So that way. Beautiful. Okay, so check. I got the. I come, I come to Colin and I'm like, hey, I want to, I want to launch this, this fitness, this fitness towel, okay, It's a fitness towel. And you're just like, okay, cool. And then you basically put us, put, put us through the system, which is what we just talked about. Front end, middleware, back end. And now it's basically okay, now we understand where you are, what the problem is, what people love about your product or what people should love about your product. And what people, why they're. Or what, what they're not even seeing and they're looking at competitors. And then you have basically all the information that you need. Now what's the next step, the next.

[Colin Raja]

Step is making sure your front end is optimized really clear. So you take all the information, either go to like 99 design or go hire like a bunch of any other designer you know, actually give it to them. Okay, this is my pooling, this is my competitor pooling. This is why my competitor is winning. This is why I'm not winning. Can you come up with like a front end image? Like really crazy. So why I love about 99 design is basically you get like a ton if you put up like a $400 bet and you get like a 200, like 200 entries actually completely like raised. So I take that information and run the pool again and ask them which one is you really like it actually. So I select like top 10 and then put it in the pooling process again which one you like and why. So then we'll take this top one and then we run it with again a competitors actually. Then we will find out which one is the better one to go for. So then we know. Okay, anybody seen my listing? My comprehensive listing. I'm the one who's going to get clicks a lot actually. Right. So that's the first step what we do optimization process completely.

[Cody McGuffey]

And that's the first, that's the first main, basically the main image, that's what you're talking about here.

[Colin Raja]

And also, and also stack image. We do it later. But the, the main image is the most important thing. Why? Because when it comes to Amazon launch on the first, first period, first week, two weeks of period, Amazon required a lot of searches. Actually you're not, you don't, they don't care about the conversion. Of course in the later point it comes to a conversion the first two weeks you can rank keyword just by getting a traffic in your listing completely. And if you don't have the conversion later then you will gonna fall down completely. But to get there you just need more clicks. You just need like a little bit of sales for the purchase intent keywords and then go forward because if you.

[Cody McGuffey]

Can'T, if you can't get the clicks and you're certainly not gonna get the conversions because you need to searches first.

[Colin Raja]

Yeah. Okay, first.

[Cody McGuffey]

Okay, so now, now I have that. Now you have that now, now we have this. The main image, it's designed, it's like wow, this is a great, great Amazon main image.

[Colin Raja]

Then what the next step is like identifying what are the keywords you need to be focused on. So Amazon right now the latest algorithm, it's called EQR model Basically it focus on purchase intent keyword completely right. Amazon don't want. This is based on our understanding and also our test actually. Amazon don't want like anybody who just comes and then like browse the key put up like a browse keyword. There's two types of keywords. One is like a browse keyword, other one is like a purchase keyword. The browse keyword is basically somebody's like coming and then typing garlic press and looking for. They don't know what they want literally. So they want specifically like oh I want stainless steel garlic press with. With the COVID and everything. They want like a more purchase detail intent that what they want actually basically right. So they're going for that. So we divided into what are the keywords what we need to be focused on right now to get to a minimum sales on the first two weeks of period of time. So we take those keywords and divide it into two different groups actually. One a group by keyword, another one is like a semantically mapped keywords. So group by keyword is for example, I would say cell phone cover actually. So I'll go for like all the COVID cell phone cover which is like silicon based cell coverage, highly protective silicon cover. And I group it by keyword actually the next one is like basically like a semantic mapping semantic map. How does work like when it comes to a material, the material has like a multiple elements of cotton and all the things these are semantically mapped inside completely, right. So right now compared to 2017 and right now you don't have the index for all the keywords. You index for one keyword and you get like a 30 keywords you can automatically rank for it. At this point we divided into this space actually and then build the faces actually. So we say phase one, phase two, phase three launches which is like each and every faces will have like a 7 to 10 keywords straight when you have a 7 to 10 keyword. So on that 10 days of period we push a traffic to that 10 keywords to make sure that we rank that one in a 7 to 10 days period of time actually.

[Cody McGuffey]

And tactically where you. What are you doing with these 7 to 10 keywords? Are you putting them in the back end? Right in the back end of the metadata I guess you could say. Or. And then you're also putting them in the front end of the title and then also kind of the towards the top of the description and then is that kind of where you're putting this? Is that what you mean?

[Colin Raja]

Whatever you talk about It's a relevancy model. What we had 2000 up to 2021 a period of time. Right now we are something called dynamic re ranking model in the Amazon search hustle which is basically you don't have to have all the keyword in your listing to rank. So what do we do is like basically we prepare that one into listing with all the algorithm basically like NLP model which is semantically keyword and EQR model. We prepare the listing basically not to build a keyword to build the experience actually on your listing. So Amazon goes into like more towards the experience. What they want to give it to the user. And they want each and every sellers to be focused on a specific buyers. Actually there are totally like seven types of buyers there. I mean on top of my head I would say four right now. Which is like a value buyers and like a seasonal buyers. Gift buyers and professional buyers. Each and every people looks for different things. For example professional buyers, they don't care about the pricing actually they want what are they getting? Are they getting the quality that what they want? They are technical people. They want like a more in detail. But when it comes to like a value buyer they don't care about they're like. Or they want like a maximum out of their buck. If you're buying the speaker they're thinking about like can I get the COVID out of it? Can I get like travel elements out of it? This it comes with the charger and everything. The combination of stuff. That's what they like actually. So prepare your listing based on the what audience you want to serve it to actually.

[Cody McGuffey]

So like we're talking about like using the language that a professional buyer would be would care about. Right. And basically just start not necessarily keyword stuffing or anything like that. It's mostly just talking to that audience in a way that.

[Colin Raja]

That is correct. You focus on in such a way that you're speaking to that audience in such a way that oh this is what I'm looking for. And they going into your listing, you know about like a Google or Damn. The word is not coming out right now. So. So in. In the Google the one other one of the major problem that people won't able to rank because when they click on the somewhere somewhere in the links actually they click on it. They go into your listing, they go in your search page and they go out immediately bounce rate. Right? That's so high. Ashley, you probably. You're probably not able to rank the keyword in the Google just like that in Amazon. If somebody Click on your listing. They are not spending good amount of time on going through your EBC and delisting and all the things they consider to be a bounce rate and then they put you down like crazy. So how can you build an experience for Amazon? So that's exactly the next step. Building the listing in terms of like taking those keywords, building the listing for appropriate audience and build the experience for the audience specifically you search for. Right. So now your front end is done based on the keyword. Now you're going for a middleware which is basically like Amazon attribution, Amazon refinements and Amazon browse notes, product app and item type. All these data are mapped very clear. Actually at that point do you recommend.

[Cody McGuffey]

Like any like giveaway challenges or not challenges but like giveaways to like boost ranking at first or is that not really a thing as much anymore in Amazon?

[Colin Raja]

No, see, okay, there is a level of keywords there. So we called keywords from complexity 1 to complexity 5. Some keywords, you just put it in your listing and you can able to rank some keyword you need to run external traffic. To rank some keyword you need to do an external traffic, you need to do like a ppc. To rank some keywords, you need to do the giveaways plus external traffic plus all the things to rank some keywords you need to build the relevancy to rank. So there is a level of it actually. So you need to bracket your listing or your keywords. How. Which level you need to take it to rank your keyword. Yeah, and I'm saying it's not a product launch anymore in Amazon. It's a basically like a keyword launch at this point.

[Cody McGuffey]

Interesting. Do you. With those 150 products that you launched last year, how much of those were giveaway? Like did you, did you do any giveaways for those specific products? Like for certain keywords?

[Colin Raja]

We do, we did like a couple of. Couple of external traffic and we do like a couple of their own audience giveaways process. Actually we've done giveaways.

[Cody McGuffey]

It's not the main strategy for you. It doesn't sound like.

[Colin Raja]

It's not the. It's not the only strategy. It's not the. Sometimes we do like a Facebook ads, run the ads and then do like discounted, discounted up audience things actually. But the whole process is like bracketed once you brack. So for example, recently we launched the product, we've been doing the PPC launches like crazy. Right? We seeing the keywords are now moving really well. Once the phase one is completed. The keywords are now moving. We did the external traffic, we moved a little bit and we did like the external giveaways actually in terms of like run the audience traffic, actually give them a discount to purchase a product. Actually the deep discount for purchase the product. And then we started Moving to like 35 position to fifth position actually at that point. Right. So not making a decision out of your head, make a decision out of your data. That's where you can turn left and right actually. Very easy. Not like, not like okay, there is no one way street of going and launching the product here actually.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, that's, that's eye opening for me. Just because I haven't sold on Amazon for many, many years actively at least. Um, and so the thing when I was, when I was building our Amazon brand, it was one, I was young, I, I didn't know much about, about doing it, but I, I was under the impression that pretty much giveaways, like product launch giveaways were like, was the only strategy, really the most effective only strategy. And that's when like manichat and like you would have to get so creative with like zapier and like to do all these things which I'm sure still exist. But I was under the impression that was the only way to do things.

[Colin Raja]

No, it was before 2016, 2017. You just do like this called. They have like a basic matching algorithm actually at that point they have a machine learning builder in 2016, 2017 actually at that point point. So basically you take one keyword, do like a blast like a hundred giveaway or 200 giveaway for the next seven days. It automatically ranks. Not anymore, Ashley.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah, I didn't think so.

[Colin Raja]

Yeah. And you don't want to spend that much money as well. We don't do that one. You have like a brand analytics data. You have a search query performance data, you have other tools data like a Data Dive and Helium 10 data. And you have like a PPC data, more clear, very well directional keywords data. And you know exactly how much each keyword can make sales. Yeah. So basically you have all the data to make a proper decision in terms of like okay, how many keywords, how many sales each keyword brings. So if you want to make like a 20 sales, you know what are the keywords you need to make? That's how, that's how bread and butter. Basically like we can able to tell okay, if you want to make a 40 sales, how many keywords you need to rank for or there is a room for 40 sales. How many keywords, how much you're going to spend for this launch basically to build the 40 sales at this point. So it's a data, it's all about data and you know about. What I'm talking about is like when you do like ever be like, basically like you know that the criteria of like it needs to match and if you match the right criteria and you launch the product, it always goes. Going to work actually.

[Cody McGuffey]

Absolutely. It, it makes us, it gives us a lot of confidence to move into a category to a new product, to. To do anything. I think it's a good transition time. It's already flying by so quick to move into rapid fire. Questions? Are you ready?

[Colin Raja]

100%. Yeah, let's do it.

[Cody McGuffey]

What's your favorite business book?

[Colin Raja]

I'm more towards. I'm more towards something when you, when your mindset is taken care and your business will be taken care of for yourself. I like the book called something called Untethered Soul. Yeah. Untarred Souls.

[Cody McGuffey]

Why?

[Colin Raja]

Because it's led me to control my emotion. Taking care of my, my. I'm not dealing with my inner, inner my mind. I'm dealing with my all my professional ability to make the decisions. So that's one of my favorite favorite books. And also I like the Nike. The. Yeah. Shoe dog. It's. It's a very amazing book. Those two books I will always recommend. Recently I jumped into one of the book called Super Becoming a Supernatural by Joe Dispenser. That's amazing book actually. I would say. Yeah.

[Cody McGuffey]

Awesome. And by the way, the first book was for anyone that didn't, that didn't catch. It was the Untethered Soul. The journey beyond yourself.

[Colin Raja]

That is correct. Yes.

[Cody McGuffey]

Beautiful. What's one thing that you wish that you knew before starting your business?

[Colin Raja]

I mean it's again going back to the life actually. It's a business and personal life experience actually. You're gonna have a hard time but you're gonna survive out of that and you're gonna grow much bigger. So they said your comeback will be much bigger than your setbacks actually. So when it's comebacks comes. When you're. When your setback comes, be ready and be joyful. Not being sad and depressed because most of the time we always look for bad things not to happen. And when it comes it we hit hard but when we look back every bad things happen we step up 20% higher than in a regular time actually. So I look for at times that where I'm. Where I'm like things Are things are getting hard then I know that when I'm growing at that point.

[Cody McGuffey]

I love that. What's the worst advice that you've ever received about business?

[Colin Raja]

The worst advice I receive on the business? No, it's just a. It's. I mean the worst advice is like listening to my mind actually like listening to your guts. Of course you can. But I'm talking about like it's more fun when you have the data in place actually. It's like go with your guts, do what you. What you're supposed to do actually. But I'm talking about like sometimes we don't know how to differentiate between the guts and mind actually. So if you know it, it's good. But I'm talking about like I don't know how to differentiate it. Like some. I had a very hard time to differentiate what is my gut feeling and also what's my mind feeling.

[Cody McGuffey]

Sure.

[Colin Raja]

Right. So not. Then I moved towards the data. Like I'm not making decision out of this. I'm making a decision out of the data. So then I don't have to be there. My team can able to take care of it completely.

[Cody McGuffey]

Well, how would you define a creator? Who is a creator to you?

[Colin Raja]

Creator created in a way that in talking about the universe or like anything.

[Cody McGuffey]

Yeah. Who. Who is a creator? Is it. Is that a content creator or is it everyone, every single person is a creator? Or is it like, hey, we're all creators. Don't like we're all in it.

[Colin Raja]

For me, it's like a. I'm a very big problem solver. I'm a very big. And so I believe in entrepreneurship. It's. It's the only place that it's going to solve the problems in the world. Anybody who try to solve any problems and come up with the better solutions, it doesn't matter how big or how small it is. They are the creators of this world.

[Cody McGuffey]

Actually, I completely agree with that and I think I already know the answer to this question because you just kind of said it. But who do you think should be a business owner?

[Colin Raja]

One of the strong belief. I'm not a very book student. I'm very dumb in my class. I fail my test. The one thing I learned out of that is basically it's like, okay, I go prepare for my exam, but I still fail. And I know that when I'm gonna fail and I prepare for my next exam, actually the wrestling I'm talking about like the. What do you have? Is like basically I build it like a never give up attitude. Actually it does not gonna. Nothing is gonna stop me that who I am. Nothing is gonna stop me where I'm going to go. It doesn't matter what comes actually in my way. If it's a wall or whatever it is, I'm gonna break through. I'm not gonna pass through. I'm gonna break through and then thrive and thrive. Actually when you somebody asks like any kid, anybody as an attitude of like no I'm not giving up on this actually. And they are like a best fit for like why? Because they are the best people who's gonna be like go go, go against the tradition and never like never like gonna be. When I was a kid, I'm just like if I took something I. I disbanded my cycle and then put it back by myself. Like I don't even know how that works actually. But I sit and then night by night and try to figure out how to do it. And then I clean and I put it back. So I seen any kids any. Anybody who has. They can never give up such an attitude. They're going to go far beyond their ability. I think they are more powerful and they are more dangerous. They're going to be like go further in their life.

[Cody McGuffey]

Actually I love that column where. Where can people find you and work with you? Follow along your journey, learn more about you.

[Colin Raja]

Sure. Yeah. You can follow me in. In my YouTube channel Colin Raja. You can connect me with me in the Facebook. Colin Raja. So I'm super active about like talking about the latest algorithm. Latest. I have done multiple case studies if you guys want one of your case studies and hit me up and I'm happy to share for sure.

[Cody McGuffey]

By the way, for anyone listening to this or watching this, we'll link to Collins all those links that we talked about today on the show. Notes in the description below. Colin, appreciate you man. Thank you for coming on and sharing your knowledge and excited to connect.

[Colin Raja]

Connect soon 100% and thanks for having me and thanks for amazing question. It's a rapid fire. It's really great.

[Cody McGuffey]

Awesome talk to you soon.

[Colin Raja]

Yeah, thank you. Take care.